Subject: Review: GLIMPSES

From: [email-masked] (Alan Miburi-san Wexelblat)
Date: 15 Feb 94 00:18:04 GMT

Glimpses
			by Lew Shiner
		Review Copyright (c) 1994 Alan Wexelblat

The following is a true story: Once upon a time, there was a young man whose
talents in the world included the ability to bring forth stories that no one
else could hear.  He heard these stories and recorded them, despite the
opposition of his family, as best he could.  He found friends who believed
in him and who encouraged him.  But in the end, the pain and struggle to
produce the stories proved to be too much and he decided the stories were
not worth his life.  He no longer makes stories.

In one version of the universe "he" is Lewis Shiner -- my friend and the
author of GLIMPSES.  In another universe "he" is Ray Shackleford, a
down-on-his-luck electronics repairman who one day discovers that he can
somehow imagine into being music that never existed -- like the original
intended version of the Beatles' "Long and Winding Road."  Any similarities
between the two universes is purely intentional.

It takes immense talent to write about one's life in a way that is
interesting to others, especially to people who don't know you.  I mean,
let's face it: our private tragedies and triumphs really don't mean much to
other people.  But to take a life and transform it into an honest public
examination takes a form of talent and courage I can't even begin to
imagine.

This is what Shiner has done with GLIMPSES.  It is largely autobiographical,
and it is at the same time a novel of surpassing power and emotional impact.
It chronicles one man's reaction to the sudden death of his father, to the
breakup of his marriage and to his ongoing fascination with the music and
musicians of the 60s.

Those of you who have read DESERTED CITIES OF THE HEART, Shiner's second
novel, will remember the 'time-travel to meet dead musician' scene.  In that
book, it is left up to the reader to determine if the time travel ever took
place, or was all in the head of the protagonist.  In GLIMPSES, Shiner seems
to be saying that the trips really do happen.  Certainly they leave lasting
impressions on the modern world, in the form of "bootlegs" of music which
didn't exist before.

But mostly they leave impressions on the body and psyche of Ray Shackleford,
whose trips into the past of music parallel his attempts to travel into the
past of his marriage and his relationship with his father.  In the one case,
he comes back with new music by the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beach Boys.
In the other case he comes back with new understandings of his father and
himself.

The book is powerful, phenomenally well-written, and almost impossible to
find in bookstores.  Morrow has done all of us a disservice by effectively
burying this work of genius.  I advise you all to hunt up copies where ever
you can.

The fact that the British police have recently reopened an inquiry into the
cause of death of Jimi Hendrix is completely coincidental.  I think.

%A Lew Shiner
%T Glimpses
%I Morrow
%G ISBN 0-688-12411-9
%O $21.00
%D 1993